Library Notes: Miniature music festivals

Summer, in which we find ourselves firmly ensconced, is like a nesting doll for several sub-seasons.

For instance, it’s the season of freedom and slacking for many students. For others, it’s the season of summer jobs.

It’s the season campouts and backyard barbecuing and baseball and fireworks.

For music enthusiasts like myself, it’s the season of the outdoor music festival.

From Bonnaroo in Tennessee to Lollapalooza in Chicago and Austin City Limits in Texas, in addition to 80/35 just down the street in Des Moines, festivals are in bloom all over the country.

Festivals are a great way to see a medley of musicians in one day, to mingle with other music lovers and to sample sapid treats from diverse food vendors.

It allows you to feel like you’re a part of something larger, like you’re in an autonomous country for a weekend.

However, as I get older, the idea of attending a music festival becomes less appealing. If your favorite band is relegated to a midday slot, their set is often abbreviated. At larger festivals, it may seem like the band is miles away, appearing as specks on a colossal stage and only visible on vast video monitor displays.

The heat can be oppressive, storms could mar and delay the performances and sunburn is all but guaranteed.

Once, I spent more than four hours in traffic to enter a festival, only to have my car overheat and die right at the gates.

Also, if you have children, it can add another layer of complications.

These days, I prefer to enjoy most of my live music from the comfort of my own home with a tracklist and lineup curated by my own whims.

I’ve been a fan of live albums and live concert films since I was 10 when Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged in New York” showed me the transformative power of live reinterpretations. It unveiled hidden meaning and, in some cases, the soul of a song I didn’t notice on the studio album versions.

The mournful, acoustic treatments of Nirvana’s songs still affect me profoundly, as do their covers of Lead Belly and David Bowie. It remains my favorite live album to this day.

I have written previously about my newfound adoration for the Grateful Dead, a band with an abundance of live albums in their catalog. “Europe ’72,” ranking as my second favorite live album of all time.

Recorded during the band’s first trek to Europe, it finds the band inspired, coming off the success of their successful Americana-inflected albums “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty.”

It went gold in two months and was one of the first triple-record rock albums to do so. Additionally, their most recently released live offering, “Cornell 5/8/77” is widely regarded as one of their best shows ever.

It’s so famous, in fact, Grateful Dead scholar Peter Conners wrote a fascinating book about that one show titled “Cornell ’77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead’s Concert at Barton Hall.”

Ranked by Rolling Stone in 2012 as the 24th greatest album of all time (and highest ranking live album on the list) and added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress is James Brown’s timeless and relentless “Live at the Apollo.”

Brown was the consummate performer and has the audience eating out of his hand. His live band is crackling and lively and you can practically feel Brown’s sweat cascading through the speakers.

This, of course, is just a minor sampling of the staggering selection of live albums available at the library. From stone-cold classics, such as “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison” and The Band’s “Last Waltz” to newer, under-the-radar greats like the jovial “We All Raise Our Voices to the Air,” by the Decemberists and Wilco’s daring “Kicking Television,” the library can save you from the heat and never ending bathroom lines. We can help you create and curate your own miniature music festival at your own home, where the beer’s cheaper anyway.